Qualcomm and Teleepoch Enter Into a 3G CDMA Subscriber Unit License Agreement, October 6, 2007

MTN chooses Cambridge Broadband Networks for multi-service wireless network in Rwanda, October 6, 2007

Brazilian government to publish 3G bidding rules soon, October 6, 2007

KTF 3G service suffers from technical problems, October 6, 2007

Argentina’s Personal lunches 3G service in Rosario, October 6, 2007

Russia has it's first 3G network, October 6, 2007

AT&T could drop Alcatel-Lucent as 3G mobile network supplier, October 6, 2007

Enea Extends License Agreement with ZTE for 3G Handsets, October 2, 2007

LG to unveil premium handsets in Brazil, October 2, 2007

KTF 3G subscribers doubled in less than 3 months, October 2, 2007

3G policy in India will be non-uniform, October 2, 2007

- previous news

Location-Based services value greater than the sum of their parts

August 16, 2005

One of the important things about location-based services is that they enable a host of other applications, delivering value greater than the sum of their parts.

According to Kenneth Hyers, ABI Research's principal analyst of global wireless operator research, "It's not just a technology in your mobile phone that says 'you are here.' It can also pass that information to many other applications."

Do you want a route home? A friend's location, relative to where you are? A location-stamp on that picture you took with your camera phone? LBS enable all these functions.

A real-estate appraiser might photograph a house with a GPS-equipped phone, then combine the picture, its subject's GPS coordinates and, if linked to a navigation program, its actual address, and send that information to the office's billing system to identify the party to be invoiced for the service.

"Mobile operators don't want to sell 'location technologies' -- that's too esoteric," concludes Hyers. "But they believe that if you tell an end-user, 'call us to check movie times and we'll route you to the theater', consumers will be willing to pay for that service."

Is this fantasy or reality? That depends, ironically, on where you live and who your mobile operator is.

Nextel has pioneered LBS in the U.S. and maintains the most advanced portfolio. This year Sprint has shown a real interest. Hyers believes that "the combination of Sprint and Nextel could lead to some really interesting synergies where lessons learned on the corporate side at Nextel can be translated to Sprint's good consumer base."

Outside the U.S., KDDI in Japan is successfully rolling out LBS. In South Korea, SK Telecom is pushing LBS strongly, while in Europe, Hutchison is attracting attention with its 3G LBS which Hyers terms "the best in the region."

ABI Research's study, "Location Based Services" examines handset-based LBS in detail, focusing on location technologies, operator deployment strategies, and handset evolution.